Better Off Alone
by Mel966
Summary: When Korra returns from her spiritual journey, she discovers some not-so pleasant things about what Mako has been up to. Set after Book 2: The Guide episode. Mako/Korra confrontation.


Korra barely had time to slide off Naga's back before she was engulfed in a hug. Nearly choking from the strength of it, she wrapped her arms back around Bolin and squeezed, because this was her friend and she had thought she may never see him again.

"I thought you died," he whispered, and his normally chipper voice was choked and grave. "We didn't hear from you for weeks, and then we got the news…" He broke off and pulled away to look her in the face. "I'm so glad you're alive," he said simply, clapping her on the shoulder and shooting her a shaky grin.

"I missed you, too, Bolin," she replied with a broad smile. She truly had. She had lived seventeen years without him, but surviving this last month without Bolin and Asami had been unexpectedly hard. Tenzin tried his best to comfort her, but he was nearly forty years her senior, and his kids were far too young for her to confide in.

She looked around what had once been her home on Air Temple Island. It was empty, listless, poorly lit. Tenzin and his family would be back in a few days, and with them life would return. In the meantime, she resolved to not let the silence of the place get to her.

"You could stay with me for a few days," Bolin offered, watching her as she examined the place.

Korra winced. "I don't think it'd be a good idea. Mako and I, uh, hardly parted on good terms." She said his name smoothly enough, but didn't allow herself to dwell on the twisted feelings it conjured.

Bolin looked uncomfortable. "I don't live with Mako anymore."

"Oh." Korra looked at him for a moment, and then decided she'd hear the reason in good time. She didn't want to prod Bolin to share before he was ready. Patience had been forced upon her by amnesia and spiritual encounters along her journey. Days of meditation brought acute self-awareness and self-control; she no longer felt the tug to know everything at once.

"Korra, about Mako…" Bolin began awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Is he alright?" she asked. Maybe there still was a tug to know everything, after all. But Mako was special. She loved him, and the shame of how she had treated him before she left ate at her every night.

"Yeah, he's fine," Bolin replied, still looking uncomfortable. "But he's… Well, I don't really know. I haven't talked to him much since he was arrested."

"He was arrested?" she asked a little too quickly. She tried to ignore the way her pulse rushed.

"About a week after you left," he affirmed. At her increasingly startled look, he added, "But he's fine! He was released only a few days later. False arrest, you know, and Asami proved Varrick framed him. So he's fine."

"Varrick?" She didn't understand half of what he had just said. "What happened while I was away, Bolin?" She had a sinking feeling that everything was not, in fact, going well with her friends and her ex-boyfriend.

He sighed. "It's a long story. We should sit down."

Half an hour later, the pair found themselves sitting on the roof of the air temple, under the night sky. Korra stared out over the bay, watching as the waves distorted the reflection of the moon. The moon was a spirit, too, she had learned. It was a distinctly feminine spirit, with a history and a character like any other. Everything around her was spiritual. If she were to enter the spirit world, even the blackness of the night would emerge as brilliant color. The wind that ghosted across her neck, the warmth left over from the day full of sun, and the life bursting forth in the garden below all were the work, directly or indirectly, of spirits. It was beautiful.

"Korra?" Bolin asked, breaking her concentration. "Are you alright?"

She sighed, and felt the heightened awareness slip away from her. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "I don't feel anything, really." She didn't. Hearing that Mako and Asami may or may not have gotten back together in her absence should have affected her. Hearing that Mako and Bolin had fought over her, Korra, should have affected her. She didn't feel the anger or the sense of betrayal or the sadness she expected. "Does Mako know I'm back?" Did he know she was even alive?

"I don't think so. I'm sure it'll be in tomorrow's papers." Bolin reached over to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "Korra, I'm sorry." He awkwardly patted her on the back.

She leaned into his embrace. "It's not your fault."

The pair didn't move for a while. Korra just stared out across the bay, thinking, and pretended that the wetness in her eyes was from the wind.

"Bolin, I think I'll take you up on that offer after all. Where's your new place?"

The next morning, sunlight snaked its way in through the window and dodged the mess of a bachelor's apartment to rouse the Avatar. She groaned and turned away from the light as much as she could on the couch. Bolin had offered her his bed, but after a month of sleeping on the ground, she didn't think the gigantic feather-soft mattress would be even remotely comfortable. A month. It had really been a month since she had left Republic City. It seemed a lifetime ago. After all, since then she had met the fire nation, lost and rediscovered herself, met the original Avatar, conquered her own nature, and sealed the portal that she in her ignorance had once opened, discovering her spiritual side along the way.

A loud knock sounded at the door of the apartment, and Korra nearly jolted straight off the couch. Sleepily rubbing at her eyes, she just stared as the knocking got louder and more frenzied.

"Damn it," she hissed, standing up stiffly. "Bolin, get up!" she shouted in the direction of his room, as she crossed to yank the door open.

Mako and Korra stared at each other in surprise for a long, weighted pause.

"Korra," he whispered, his eyes wide. He took a step forward as if to embrace her, and she stepped back instinctively. They both paused again, measuring each other up.

He looked almost exactly the same. He wore almost the same clothes, right down to the red scarf, and she could smell the cologne he favored. He was the Mako that had been hers, the Mako that had kissed her a thousand times and told her he loved her. He was the Mako that she had yelled at and fought with and kissed and made up with. He was the Mako that wasn't hers any longer.

"Mako," Bolin said in surprise, arriving in the living room in what looked to be a rumpled set of pajamas. "Um…" Bolin stared between Korra and Mako.

The tension in the room could have been cut with a knife.

"Well, come in then," Korra finally said, her voice rough. From sleep, she was sure.

"What do you want?" Bolin asked his brother as he closed the door. She was surprised to hear the hostility in his tone. Apparently their fight had been more serious than she'd thought.

"You're alive," Mako whispered. He was staring at her, she noticed, completely ignoring his brother.

"I'm alive," she confirmed. She resisted the urge to cross her arms protectively over her chest. It was just Mako. She had faced rabbit spirits more dangerous to her than he was—although the rabbit spirits weren't her previous lovers.

Silence fell.

"Bolin, could please we have some privacy?" Korra finally asked. She turned to look at the green-eyed brother, sending him an urgent look. She knew that a confrontation with Mako was inevitable, and putting it off could only worsen it.

"Sure," he relented. After another pause, "I'll just go pick up some breakfast, then. I'll be back soon."

The door closed behind him and left the fire bender and the Avatar staring at each other tensely.

"You look well," Mako said.

Korra couldn't just sit there and try to force an amicable conversation with him. She didn't want to waste time beating around the bush. "I'm sorry," she replied.

Mako looked taken aback. "For what?"

"For the way I treated you. Before we broke up. I was stressed out, and I felt like everyone was blaming me for everything that went wrong. I felt like I couldn't please anyone, especially you, and I just took it out on you. I'm sorry that I was snappy and accusatory. I really am sorry." Everything tumbled out in a rush. Despite spending a month composing heartfelt and formal apologies to him, what emerged in the moment was a lot less cohesive and a lot rawer.

"Korra," he murmured, stepping closer to her.

Against her better judgment, she let him hug her. She didn't hug him back, so it was an uncomfortably one-sided embrace. As she was engulfed by his scent and the strength of his heartbeat beneath her cheek, she was swept away by emotion. She bit her lip, holding back tears, and then jerked away from him.

"But you… You owe me an apology, too." She took a deep, shaky breath. "And a story, first. What happened between you and Asami while I was gone?"

Mako went from warm to uncomfortable in a split second. "How much did Bolin tell you?" he asked instead, rubbing the back of his neck.

"He told me that you had your hands all over her less than a week after we broke up. He said that you were basically back together by the time you heard that I was presumed dead. He said that he confronted you about it and hasn't spoken to you since," Korra replied coolly. "And what I'd like to know is how on earth you deluded yourself into thinking that any of it was okay."

The bite in her words surprised both of them, but as she looked at him, she realized she was no where near done.

"I loved you. And while I was out in the world trying to make up for my own mistakes, you were sitting around here mashing your face against hers. 'I'll never hurt you again?' Some promise, if this is your idea of not hurting me." She paused for a breath and realized she was crying. "I don't even know you. The Mako that I loved wouldn't whore himself out to feel better about his own mistakes! The Mako I loved wouldn't throw away six months of a relationship by hooking up with his ex the instant there was a problem!" She wiped angrily at her eyes, unashamed by the emotion that overtook her as she glared at him. "What does that say about you? That you can't handle being alone so badly that you'll manipulate two girls that made the mistake of caring about you? Maybe Asami is okay with switching off for your favorite of the week, but I'm not. I'm _not_. If you think there is even a chance of us getting back together, or even being friends, you're even dumber than I thought."

"I made a mistake," Mako told her. His eyes were misty. "I made a mistake. You were gone, and I didn't know what to do. She was there, and she was someone that cared about me."

"I was gone? Don't make this sound like I left you! I fucked up, sure, but you were the one to leave me!" Korra snapped back at him, her temper flaring up again.

"You think I don't regret that?" he snapped back at her, his eyes flashing. "I love you! You're just so goddamned unbearable sometimes, Korra, and we both handled it poorly."

"Don't you dare say you love me!" she spat at him furiously. "You don't get to say that anymore! You don't get to trivialize what you did by pretending everything will be just fine!"

"Everything would be just fine, if you would calm down—"

"Calm down?! You need to—"

"—we weren't even _together_, Korra—"

"—how could you think that—"

"—I never cheated on you! We weren't together, Korra! I never betrayed you. You've just always been so jealous of Asami! Don't be unreasonable—"

Korra clenched her fists. Wind whipped around her ears, and a picture smashed to the ground. "Get. Out."

"What?"

"Just get out." Her anger deflated suddenly like a balloon. "Tell yourself whatever you'd like. Your actions were justified, sure. I've always been unreasonably jealous of her, sure. Just get out. Please." She was exhausted. She didn't want to deal with this anymore. She couldn't deal with this anymore.

Mako didn't move. "Korra, just listen to me," he continued, agitated.

She cut him off. "I don't need to hear it. Not now, at least. It won't change anything. Just go."

Maybe it was the reminder of the angry wind that had shattered glass a few moments ago, or maybe it was the contorted look on her face, but he left, and she closed the door behind him before he could say another word to her. She leaned against the wooden frame of the door for a long time, listening to his footsteps fading. He was gone. She let out a shaky breath. He was gone.

She knew that someday, when she wasn't feeling so raw and cut open, she'd sit down with Mako again. Maybe on that someday, he'd apologize, too, and they could be tentative friends again. However unlikely, she decided this hope wouldn't be a bad thing. He was Bolin's brother. For Bolin's sake, she should try to be civil, so that she wouldn't be the wedge between them any longer. She supposed she'd have to talk to Asami at some point—there the feeling of betrayal was weaker but present—but she didn't feel an overwhelming desire to seek the girl out. She was in no hurry to see either her ex-boyfriend or Asami for quite a while. She could focus on herself, on bettering her very nature and getting over the trauma of the last month. Someday, she'd fall in love again.

But for now, she decided, sitting down with a cup of tea to wait for Bolin and their breakfast, she would be much better off alone.


End file.
